Just want to let you know that the September/October 2016 Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) Online Newsletter is available for you to read. You do not need to be a member of the society in order to access this material.

Lots of good material throughout the newsletter to keep you informed on many genealogical topics applicable to the state of Illinois. Plenty of embedded links for you to access from the PDF file of the newsletter.

You can also access the archive of previously published Illinois State Genealogical Society Newsletters from 2008-2016 at:

Take a look at it if you choose to browse through it in advance of our Genealogy Program that will take place on Tuesday evening, September 13, 2016 at 7:30 PM at our main library location at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

You can read the handouts online or you can save them as a PDF file to your own computer for reading offline and more detailed searching through all of the contents.

You will also note that I “highlight” in this uploaded PDF key points within the handout by using the “yellow highlighting” function within Microsoft Word. This will allow your eyes to visually see key points within the handouts that I want to emphasize. I hope you will enjoy being able to more easily see these key points within the set of handouts through this highlighting technique. I plan on highlighting within the Handout file on a going forward basis.

Please note that the Handouts PDF file has embedded Bookmarks to allow you to move to the handouts of interest to you quickly without having to scroll through the entire document. Just open the Bookmark window in the PDF file and select the handout of interest for quick access.

You can also get to the handouts of interest to you quickly via the Table of Contents at the beginning of the document. You will find hyperlinks that will get you directly to the handout of interest to you from the Table of Contents.

Please note that you can access directly any and all URL Links that you find within the Handouts PDF. You can get directly to the website being mentioned from within the handout being mentioned.

Take a look at it if you choose to browse through it in advance of our Genealogy Program that will take place on Tuesday evening, September 13, 2016 at 7:30 PM at our main library location at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

You can read the newsletter online or you can save it as a PDF file to your own computer for reading offline and more detailed searching through all of the contents.

Please note that the Newsletter has Bookmarks and Hyperlinks within the document to make for fast navigation from within the Table of Contents. You can quickly get to the spots that interest you from the Table of Contents.

I thought I would post this reminder of our next upcoming Genealogy Program at the Schaumburg Township District Library.

There is no pre-registration required in order to attend the program. There is no fee charged to attend. Anyone can attend this program. You do not have to be a library card holder with the Schaumburg Township District Library in order to attend.

Here are the details of our upcoming program for Tuesday evening, September 13, 2016:

Share your love of family and cultural history at this informal program. Schaumburg Library’s Genealogist Tony Kierna will give a brief review of genealogical topics, then you can work in small groups based on nationality, skill level or project type to share your findings and learn more about your heritage.

Small groups include Polish, Czech, German, Irish, British, Italian, Scandinavian, Colonial American and Beginners Group. (These groups may adjust based on attendance.) The “Share Your Family History Book/Report” table allows you to share and view family history books and ask the creators how they put them together.

Feel free to bring your laptop or tablet to share your information and research with others, or use the laptop connected to our projector.

Doors will open at approximately 7 p.m. so you can pick-up handouts, review books and journals, and network with other participants. Tony Kierna will start the program at 7:30 p.m. with introductions of new participants and a brief review of handouts and genealogical matters.

Some recent posts I made about Family Tree DNA noted that it was having a “big” sale on one of its main genealogy DNA testing products. The product was normally priced at $99 and it was on sale during August 2016 for $69.

The bad news is that sale is now over. Maybe you missed out on that opportunity price.

The good news is that Family Tree DNA has not returned that product to its normal price of what was $99.

Instead it looks like the Family Finder DNA product from Family Tree DNA is now being sold at a regular price of $79, $20 less that it was just a little over 6 weeks ago.

Once again, if price was your barrier to having your DNA tested, you may feel a lot more comfortable finally making the DNA testing plunge with Family Tree DNA at this even lower price.

The Family Finder product is the one I purchased from Family Tree DNA in July when it was on “sale” at that time for $79 instead of the normal price at the time of $99.

Well, here goes another Poll that is now on the right sidebar of the blog right at the top of the blog homepage.

I am just asking for a simple response to a very basic question.

“If You Have Had Your DNA Tested For Genealogy, Which Service Provider Did You Use?”

A) Family Tree DNA
B) 23andMe
C) Ancestry DNA
D) National Geographic Genographic Project
E) I Used More Than One Provider From The Above List
F) Other Provider Not In The Above List

All of my recent poll questions were based on looking for a simple “Yes” or “No’ response to choose. This poll is a lot different because I am asking you to pick one of the answers from the list offered. Sometimes these can be too complicated and the responder may not know how to respond or there may not be a response from the provided list that applies. I still wanted to take a chance with this poll format this time to see what happens. So read through the question and all the provided choices before selecting your answer.

From my recent blog postings you are aware that I myself finally took the Genealogy DNA plunge in July. I have been making blog postings sharing my experience of the process and my results as they were occurring. It was intended to give you some feedback on what to expect and also to encourage you to get off the “fence” if you had been thinking about it but were just not prepared to make it happen. I chose Family Tree DNA as the provider to test my DNA.

I thought since the topic of DNA is so much the rage everywhere as well as the fact that I finally did it, I thought now is a good time to put a DNA poll question out there trying to discover who has been using what service provider for DNA testing.

The poll question above identifies who I think are the top Genealogy DNA service providers. If you have only had one or many DNA tests done exclusively through one provider on the list, then select it from the list. Many of you may have had your DNA tested from multiple providers identified in the list. Choose that response if it applies to you. If you have had your DNA tested from a company not identified in the list above, then choose the response for “other”.

Lets see how the responses go to the question at hand with the list of answers to pick from.

So ……………………. “If You Have Had Your DNA Tested For Genealogy, Which Service Provider Did You Use?”

A) Family Tree DNAB) 23andMeC) Ancestry DNAD) National Geographic Genographic ProjectE) I Used More Than One Provider From The Above ListF) Other Provider Not In The Above List

It is amazing that about 3 months has passed on the life of the poll I had on the right sidebar of the blog since June 8, 2016. It is time to move on! I think a new poll question is in order!

The poll had asked the question “Have You Accessed and Used the New and Improved Wiki at FamilySearch?”

The results of the poll showed the following from the 29 total respondents that took the brief time to provide their “Yes” or “No” response to the question. The numbers show that 12 responses (42.86%) noted they have used the new and improved FamilySearch Wikiwhile 17 responses (57.14%) indicated they have not used the new and improved FamilySearch Wiki .

I really wasn’t sure which way this was going to go. My point here was that if you had not visited and viewed the new Wiki at FamilySearch that you would do so and become familiar with what is all there. I just feel that this resource is a fantastic one that far two few of us tap into immediately when we are faced to overcome some genealogical research issue. Maybe we are going to be researching Irish records for the first time and don’t know much at all about the process. Wiki items on Ireland and Irish researching can be the very helpful things to get you going down the right path. Maybe you want to write a letter to a Polish church in Poland. You can look for letter writing guides in the language of the country you are going to write to. You can copy and paste what these translation guides offer and send your letter to Poland in Polish. I personally did that very thing and I got great results back in a few weeks. Answers came back to me in Polish so I used someone knowing Polish to help translate or I could have used Google Translate to enter in the words in Polish and then see what it told me! It was amazing that the FamilySearch Wiki had such wonderful letter writing guides across many languages other than in just Polish.

The FamilySearch Wiki is a great resource full of encyclopedic information on too many genealogical topics to even consider. Search it and see what it delivers to you on something you have been curious about.

I am always looking for a larger response than even that which I just saw! So come on down —— affix your opinion as a “Yes” or “No” when so asked to the varied polls on different topics in the world of genealogy and family history research. Your answers count.

I plan on putting up a new poll rapidly. Come back for that one to see the new question being asked.

A big thank you to all of those that took the time to respond to this just recently closed poll. Take a look at the results of that poll to satisfy your own curiosity.

Don’t forget to visit my Poll Archives as part of this blog. Look for the link at the top of the homepage of the blog where it simply says “Poll Archives”. In here you will find the statistical results of the 24 previously active polls in addition to the poll that is generally “active”. If you were not aware of this Archive, you may want to visit to see what all the previous polls were about.